End of The Season Report on Wool Mites
Topic: Wool Mites

Each month that goes by gives me better perspective on my wool mite treatment regime. Here's where I am this November.

5 months of aggressive treatment has resulted in the following situation: right now there is no one exhibiting wool mite symptoms. None.

I found the monthly oral dosages of .5 cc of 1% bovine Ivomec for adult rabbits to be too little for the mites/conditions I have here. It was sufficient for bunnies under 6 pounds. I have decided that since ivermectin is only guaranteed to work 30 days according to the bottle, then I simply have to use it that often.

After 4 months of dosing every 2 weeks (until this month), I have come to the conclusion that my barn hosts the mites here. The vet finally got a skin scraping to examine and what we have is the common fur mite, nothing unusual there. The problem seems to be that the field mice, outside cats (there are 5) and hay that is present in my barn is contributing to reinfection. This in spite of monthly dosing of the barn walls, floors and cages with Sevin, which kills the mite, also.

I can, however, report that my barns have not been this clean in years .

My current dosing involves the use of generic bovine Ivermectin from Jeffers, not Ivomec, and I am finding that 1 cc per adult rabbit keeps the mites away, but seems to upset the rabbits' stomachs for 48 hours. This is unacceptable, so I have ordered Ivomec, which was easier on them for some reason. (The generic Ivermectin is $24/bottle, vs the $32 that Ivomec is. I am using up a bottle every 2 months with my herd, so tried to economize).

I am finding, too, that the length of the coat is a factor for reinfestation here after 3 weeks. The shorter the coat, the less I see mites. I assume the rabbits are grooming them off better.

The final word on this (for this year) is that Ivermectin alone will not protect a rabbit in a long coat. I use it AND Happy Jack flea powder in the last 2 months. Waiting for that treasured 5" clip, which has taken me years to get right, means that every 2 weeks in the last 8 weeks of growth, the rabbits need to be treated with flea powder containing carbaryl.

I have appreciated responses from all of you in the fur mite situations you do or do not have in your barns, and what treatments (if any) you use and what works. It seems to me that folks who have concrete floors under their cages just may fare better, so this is something I will look into for the future.

Late Summer report on wool mites
Topic: Wool Mites

What a day! The dew point was 58 this morning, and with the temperature at 72*F, this has been a banner morning for working in the barn. Mondays are dedicated to my bunnies, and I enjoy taking all the time I need to hold and check over each fur ball. Their toenails get clipped once a month; their coats get brushed (barely, as they are German crosses who do not require brushing); they get their skin checked for fur mite populations, receiving Ivermectin and Carbaryl flea powder once a month if they need it.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know about the battle I am fighting with wool mites that go on, and on, and on... I am having some real success, finally, with the new regime and new Ivermectin dosages. Once a month they ALL get 1 cc of 1% Ivermectin administered orally. Their weights range from 7-11#, and the two bigger girls get a tad more...1.25 cc. Of the 15 I checked this morning, only two rabbits had any signs, and they were "flakey ears" which is the absolute earliest symptom I have been able to link to wool mites. Rabbits can groom off some mites, but they cannot get behind their ears to groom that spot (unless they are living in a colony, where they will do it for each other!)

One interesting new tidbit of information/experience I will pass along is my new thought on foot pads/mats/wool mites. The two rabbits who had some sign of mites (very little sign, but it was there) had slightly matted foot pads last month. I trimmed their pads as short as I could, but there were some hard spots I could not trim down to the skin, so I left them and hoped the Ivermectin would finish off anything living underneath.

It apparently did not.

So, today I trimmed mercilessly, and dosed FEET with flea powder. That is a first for me. I'll report on how it that worked in a few weeks.

Wool Mites/Fur Mites (again) and Heat Loss
Topic: Wool Mites

It's been a tough week here. The summer heat and humidity have moved in for good, it looks like. This is 2 weeks sooner than I generally deal with it, and it caught me unprepared.

As a result, I juggled clipping coats with the rest of my business and got to everyone as soon as I could. I think I misjudged the timing on a young buck, and I lost him last weekend (during the 3 days of 99*) to what looks like heat exhaustion. I'm keeping the barns quarantined for 7 days after JUST to be sure it wasn't RHD, and although it didn't look like it from what I have read, I want the time to pass with everyone still healthy to be sure. The breeder I bought him from and I have compared notes (and misery), and she thinks it may have been the Ivermectin I gave him when he first got here a month ago, and the fact that he kept his super dense coat through the first 2 days of hot weather the week after he arrived, weakening his ability to withstand the heat. All things are possible, and since I did not have an autopsy done, I don't know for sure.

At any rate, I feel totally responsible for his senseless loss and miserable. I haven't lost a rabbit to heat in 6 years, but then again, I do not have climate control in the barns or quarantine area and the summers have been relatively mild. I wonder, too, if my desire to breed for denser coats might not be unfair to the angoras I keep with no AC available to them in summer. I will now install two huge fans in my two barns to give everyone an edge.

I'm always learning something new.

Which brings me to fur mites. They are unbelievable this year in my barns. I did have 6 animals I used for breeding, and did not treat any of them for 90 days during breeding/lactation, and now the itchy critters are running rampant. So, aggressive control measures are in place, and I am continuing to do more research on mites in general. I am taking this opportunity to get the exact mite here identified by my vet. Who knows...perhaps something unusual is going on. Or not.

I would LOVE to hear from breeders who are dealing with this issue with success, and have information to share that worked well for them. I will summarize all your responses into a checklist here in a few weeks.

In particular, do you use Ivermectin? What dosage? How often? Sub-Q, topical or oral?

Do you use Selamectin? Advantage? What dosage? How often? Sub-Q, topical or oral?

Do you use Carbaryl flea powder? Sevin? Do you treat your cages, barns with anything when you clean? Do your animals have access to wood in/near their cages that they gnaw on? Does IT get cleaned?

Do you use herbal things? Rosemary? How about Listerine?

Wool Mites and Harvested Angora
Topic: Wool Mites

I had a wonderful time browsing at Cummington while waiting for the second bunny to arrive, and got a chance to really look over the wares that folks had brought. I bought some fabulous handspun French angora from ELEMENTAL DESIGNS; mohair and mohair dyed locks to play with from Twin Gate Farms; and my usual spinning batts from Spinner's Hill. I love to fiber shop and support small fiber businesses.

It was interesting to see the angora rabbits there, from bunnies too young to be sold (!) to pricey Germans with weepy eyes (!) to delightful Agouti bunnies (I do not keep or breed that color pattern, but someday I may have a few for fun). I acquired my own bunny from Charlene, and Grijsje will make an appearance on the blog this week, as will Lucinda who comes with Shelia and Jen today.

In browsing, I happened to see bags of angora spinning fiber for sale. Those of you with angora rabbits already who buy spinning fiber would do well to treat the fiber as you would a new rabbit. Quarantine the fiber for a while, then treat it for fur mites before you use it, as discussed here before. Fur mites can invade your clothing in 5 minutes when you use infected fiber, and then invade any rabbit you touch or feed in the next few hours. So, just think before you proceed. And, if you are selling fiber, it would be a courtesy to sprinkle the fiber with CARBARYL flea powder before you pack it.

Wool Mites
Topic: Wool Mites

Diana sent some questions about wool mites, and I thought it a good idea to answer them here. All are situations I can identify with!

Are the signs for wool mites conclusive? (e.g. dandruff, wool matting? Other?) Yes, yes and yes! How about this one; eyes tearing. I have one rabbit whose eyes will tear and crust slightly when (untreated and unchecked and multiplying) fur mites end up near her face. The "normal" cycle generally runs like this; a rabbit will have a free flowing coat with two small mats near her ears and a tail area that seems compacted. This rabbit is about to be invaded with many fur mite colonies. Treat this bunny with Ivermectin now and again in 2 weeks. If her quarters are sterilized at this time, and again in 2 weeks, then you may be symptom free for a good long while (6 months). As I have written, and will repeat here, Ivermectin is a pesticide and its misuse/overuse MAY alter genetic information in any creature it is used on, so don't treat your breeding stock for 60 days prior to breeding, which means you WILL have fur mites in your rabbitry from time to time if you are breeding your bunnies.

This brings me to the story of Neo. I used him a lot this past winter and spring as stud, and as a result, could not keep up with the fur mite colonies that moved in. The wet and warm summer gave them license to thrive, and the matting of his coat has been a nightmare. I have had to clip off his last 2 coats and just toss them, but he is one of those rabbits who mats to the skin, and I hesitate to clip too close until the Ivermectin wipes out the colonies under the mats, which takes a week or two of growth after treatment to happen. We are, just now, after 3 Ivermectin treatments, getting to the point where some of his coat may be salvageable for the October clipping.

Do some rabbit lines tend to mat, and is this a factor with wool mites, also? Yes, some rabbit lines tend to mat. And some rabbits tend to get fur mites more easily than others. The finer the undercoat, the more this happens. I dealt with the matting issue by moving to German crossbred angoras exclusively, as they tend to NOT mat no matter what. I deal with the fur mite victims by treating them every 1-2 months WITHOUT FAIL in order to get a nice coat. Mites are not easy to keep at bay without Ivermectin here in my barns. I have tried lots of other things, and they all work to some degree, but that pesticide, if given at the right times, works no matter what.

So, how about fiber that is infested with wool mites? It is weaker than prime wool, for sure, so do everyone a favor by recognizing that and marking it as second quality if you intend to sell it. The critters will eventually die, but sooner is better than later, so sprinkle flea powder containing CARBARYL into a bag of harvested wool and leave it for a few days. Shake out the excess and you should have "de-mited" fiber.

My advice if you are testing your herd for the matting/fur mite tendency before deciding to breed them as is or add new blood in...Give up on breeding for 6 months and treat them through 2 coat harvests. Treat with Ivermectin at month 1, 2, 3 (first coat off), and again month 5. Then see what coats you get with the second harvest. The whole treatment regimen was fully discussed in a few older BareHare posts:Ivermectin and
Fur Mites and Shearing